How to Create a Basic Search Engine Strategy

When you have an online business or even presence it is vital that you have a Search Engine Strategy. Coming up with this strategy can be a pain or sometimes can involve people who don’t know what they are doing. Below we will go over a few questions and ways you can create a simple yet effective Strategy to help guide your online efforts.

First off, you gotta ask yourself…

What is being promoted?

The First Question is mean to help focus what you want to provide online. There is a good chance that there are a few people providing the same services you are offering. Because of this it becomes vital to understand and promote what sets you apart or makes you different from everyone else. This is your unique selling point (USP) and it truly should be one of a kind. In the world we live in today things like “best customer service” or “free quotes” have become so common place they are expectations. You may have to think outside of the box or even expand what you can or will provide service wise. 

Who are we targeting?

This is vital when it comes to how you can promote yourself. This market identification is crucial in understanding those that would be interested in your product. As an example let’s say that I am looking to sell crafty shelves for your home or business. If you are targeting stay at home moms I would be able to target the craftiness and even maybe get some natural links if they like the product. On the other hand if I targeted fortune 500 companies I will likely come up short since interior design is not a core focus. Once you have found your customer segment. You can create different campaign strategies to reach them with content, product giveaways, niche information, and much more.

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What do I want people to do on my site?

Another portion of your search engine strategy becomes how people interact with your site. Specifically as stated in the question “What do you want people to do on you site?” are you looking for leads, purchases, information, submissions, etc.? This becomes key in molding your site to get these crucial site interactions. If you were looking to have your site generate leads then you may want a submission form on the pages of your site. Furthermore you could look at giving something away with every submission. Things like e-books, videos, white pages, and other related information are great for such lead captures. Regardless of the intent it is crucial that you understand how you want traffic to interact with your site. With this you can help modify your site to capture that user’s attention in the way you want to. 

What are my available resources?

Once you understand what you have and don’t have at your disposal some sort of pace or timeframe can be set. As an example if you have a few people on staff that can write blogs then you might be able to accelerate your plans of expanding your website. Where the opposite is true if you are the only one working on your website. It is also good to think about how you could potentially expand your resources. For instance you could open your site up to guest blogging. This would allow others to provide you pertinent content for your site usually for a link or something to that effect. Other ways to expand this would be delegating site or content needs.

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Who are my competitors?

Lastly and one of the best things to know and understand when creating any online strategy is your competition. Often you will have one or two competitors who are solid in their online presence. Don’t allow this to discourage you, in fact it should do the opposite. Not only can you see how high the bar is but you can see where their focus is and what they currently provide. This is like having a master chef give you most of his recipes and no how without even having to talk to him. Granted the expertise may be lacking but it at least gives you the foundation on which to build on. It also can provide ideas as to how your site should be formatted. It is a safe assumption that if your competition is killing it online their site format has been tested and proven to gain attention online.

Finally you can merge each of these areas together. This will create a soft mockup for what you will need and can plan for to make your website competitive in any search engine. Naturally it will take time for this strategy to unfold just like the results from search engines. Regardless it is a long-term strategy that can have long lasting value. Building your brand is huge in today’s landscape and SEO is just one area to promote your business.

Have questions about your search engine strategy or other online endeavors? Send me a message and I will get back to you personally.